03/08   Campus wide electricity failure Thursday March 7th 5:00pm.
        Soda Hall electricity was restored at about 6.00pm Friday.
        Network connectivity was restored Saturday Morning.  -mikeh

3/9     I am running kde, it currently uses netscape to handle
        urls.  I want it to use netscape6.  where do i change
        this setting? - danh
        \_ depends, if you're highlighting and using the klipper, go to
           klipper - prefs-actions, and click on the RegExp for http.

3/9     Which one is better?  pgp4pine, MagicPGP, or PinePGP?
                        TIA             --kngharv
        \_ mutt.
        \_ Speaking of which, has anyone heard of a PGP plugin for the
           mozilla mail under *nix?  And no, I used mutt for years, but
           have found its imap support to break in my environment.  -John
           \_ fetchmail

3/9     To the person who asked about a remote for locating glasses and
        keys etc. This months sharper image has a product you might be
        interested in on pg 13 or 14.
        \_ I want something like this for my cell phone.
           \_ I'm guessing you want this if you have your cell phone off
                and you can't locate it.

3/9     hey, rand-heads!  if i'm going to read one ayn rand book, which
        one should i read?
        \_ Ayn Rand Ate My Balls
        \_ the forward to _fountainhead_, where rand proudly proclaims
           how many publishers turned away her tripe after recognizing
           it for just that is a gem.  almost everything that makes rand
           so horrible yet so hard to avoid in that macabre sense shines
           through in it so well that i would almost say that you should
           read it over _atlas shrugged_ (though the only rand i've read
           is _fountainhead_.)  i just hope you have a transpacific flight
           to waste on it as i did.
        \_ _Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature_, Nyquist.
           _The Ayn Rand Cult_, Walker
        \_ Fountain Shrugged
        \_ I decided 2 years ago to read one of her SciFi books. I was told
           to read either _Fountainhead_ or _Atlas Shrugged_.  I read
           _Atlas Shrugged_ and let me tell you it sucked.  It sucked bad,
           and this is coming from a libertarian, pro-capitalist, greed-head,
           logical-positivist with "objectivist" tendencies.  Unless you don't
           mind being preached at over and over again with the same spiel,
           phrased the same, ad nauseum, i'd advise avoiding Ayn.  At least
           you should avoid her poor Science Fiction; _The Romantic Manifesto_
           is her treatise on aesthetics (which i read years ago) and is much
           less annoying as it is not mislabeled as entertainment. It is also
           more entertaining as, instead of knocking down straw men, she
           argues that only art that is "uplifting" can be truly great (a
           sentiment that I can't imagine any reasonable person agreeing
           with.) -crebbs
                        \- i read some essays by AR and my reactions included:
                           1. yes preacy but also condescending
                           2. most of it was facile
                           3. what was original was stolen [and often not
                              awknowledged], e.g the apollonian and dyonisian
                              stuff. better read other people on almost every
                              issue she touches on. e.g. R. Nozick: Anarchy,
                              State & Utopia, or R. Posner, or even Nietzsche.
                              Of course most Randroids are not tall enough for
                              those books.
                           4. Randroids are not (actually) interested in ideas
                              but justification.
                           5. ok tnx. --psb
           \_ She lost touch with reality LONG before she wrote her books.
              \- maybe putting kerosene in her hair had some long term effects.
                 so are there any people who like heinlein but not rand?
                 i think he is a comparable lemur. ok tnx. --psb
                 \_ I like (a lot of) Heinlein, agree with crebbs
                    re: _Atlas Shrugged_.  Heinlein at his best is a lot
                    more intellectually honest.   You'll probably find a
                    number of people on rec.arts.sf.written with a similar
                    opinion.  -- goldfarb
                 \_ I like Heinlein but not Rand, Heinlein's stories are
                    entertaining whether or not you like his politics, and
                    he makes likable characters. Rand's characters taste
                    like cardboard.
                 \_ Heinlein was my favorite SciFi guy when i was a teen.
                    Although their politics/philosophy is similar (not the
                    same mind you) the similarities end there. RAH is a science
                    fiction author who is political.  Rand is a "philosopher"
                    who writes novels. Their writing is not similar at all.
                    (o.k. they both have ridiculously idealized leading
                    characters, but so do Clint Eastwood movies). Margaret
                    Atwood is more similar to Ayn even though their politics
                    are not at all similar.  Both Ayn and Margaret care (it
                    seems to me anyway) much more about preaching their point
                    than in the story they are telling. Disclaimer: I have only
                    ever read _The Handmaid's Tale_ by M.A. and it was not
                    without redeeming qualities and was better than _A S_, it
                    just wasn't good. Finally, psb, what have you got against
                    lemurs?  -crebbs
           \_ Who told you Fountainhead was scifi?
        \_ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~andrej/objectivism
           \_ this page is full of more non-sense than /.
              \_ The difference is, the people on /. are serious.
        \_ What is the big deal with Ayn Rand? I tried to read her books
           and they were *boring* and seemingly devoid of content.
           \_ Ayn Rand promises all the answers.  People find that compelling.
           \_ objectivists are ignorant.
              \_ Everyone is ignorant. You are an ignorant idiot
                 -Chad C. Mulligan
                \_ You are John Brunner and I claim my 5 pounds. -- goldfarb

3/9     http://www.microsoft.com/unix/ie/downloads/default.asp
        \_ What's your point?  MS did this 3 or 4 years ago when the
           browser wars were in full swing and they needed "Runs on UNIX"
           check boxes in the feature comparisons with Netscape.
           \_ The point is they kept the unix version relatively updated
              and didn't drop it after netscape keeled over at IE 4.x.
              \_ It probably made it easier for them to do the
                 MacOS X version
                 \_ Hardly.  The MacOS X version is native.  The UNIX version
                    uses the MainStay libraries to map Windows calls to X and
                    UNIX equivalents.  Completely different source.
              \_ Not really.  It's IE 5.0, not 5.5 or 6.0, and hasn't been
                 patched for most of the IE 5.0 security bugs.
        \_ Doesn't run on BSD or Linux.
           \_ IE Runs on BSD, MacOS X that is.
           \_ So what?
        \_ Page doesn't even load.
                \_ mine too
        \_ ie4 rocks on sol2.7! I Didn't patch it yet for ie5.

3/9     "full spectrum deterrence"
        http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-030902bombs.story
        \_ dont' see why not.  afterall, we have used nuclear weapon against
           civilian in the past.
        \_ NO NUKES! NUKES R BAD! EMP WILL DESTROY MY 200 GB PORN AND WAREZ
           COLLECTION!
        \_ Maybe its not for real:
           http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20020220/pl_usatoday/3875465&printer=1

3/9     took you hosers long enough... and don't give me that "unpaid" crap...
        ocf was up 24 hours ago.
        \_ sure, but soda hall got power back later. considering eecs inst
           (handled by PAID people) is still down as of 5a today, kudos to
           root!
           \_ ya, I know... I was being somewhat facetious.
           \_ eecs instr aren't paid for 24x7 work.  they're government
              employees.  i wouldn't use them as a basis for comparison when
              looking for quality or dedication.
                \_ They're barely paid enough to live in the bay area.
                   Industry sysadmins make 2-3 times what UCB pays.
                   \_ Bullshit.  I've been both.  It's no 3x.  And the reason
                      for the low pay is the low skill level and shitty third
                      rate attitude at UC and other government jobs.  I'd take
                      an industry or student system over a UC admin system
                      anyday.
                        \- i think ucb sysadmins are a pretty mixed bag.
                        think of the spectrum running from jkh <-> csnory
                        [and that is in the same organization]. lbl has
                        sysadmins with their names in CSRG BSD, GNU projects
                        and also people for whom it is hard to determine if
                        their net productivity is 0 or negative [seriously].
                        my guess is the really shitty sysadmins are places
                        where the pay is ass and there arnt other benefits,
                        say a community college in decatur [sp?] --psb
                      \_ industry sysadmins got all laid off a year ago.
                         \_ Uh huh and like none of them got new jobs because
                            ya know once you get laid off once you're not ever
                            allowed to work again, right?  Stop reading the
                            shitty SF Chronicle.  Reality won't be found there.
                      \_ Sorry to inject facts into this discussion, but
                         the salary survey done last year found Berkeley
                         tech staff lagged the industry in pay by an average
                         of 11%.  -tom
                         \_ what if we ignored people like strick?
           \_ eecs inst is much more complicated than CSUA and has
              more dependencies on other department services.
              \_ mikeh (who is also EECS staff for IRAM/ISTORE) brought
                 CSUA stuff up because he was already in soda for work.
           \_ I second that! Thanks for getting soda back up!